In today's time, when the global pandemic of Novel CoronaVirus is on a rampage, everything is getting online. This has brought about a boost in the arena of eLearning.
If you are someone who is in search of the right platform for creating and selling the courses online, then you would have definitely come across numerous options of platforms to choose from. It is possible to narrow down these options by determining the business and course needs.
Out of the plethora of options available in the market, you might have definitely come across Podia, which is a pretty simple and highly intuitive one-stop solution that lets the users create as well as sell numerous courses, memberships and digital downloads. Despite this, the platform might not work for everyone.
Thus, in this curated post, we will be covering various aspects of various alternatives of Podia. This way, you can choose a solution that can work the best for you.
Before getting started, let us have a brief idea of what Podia is all about.
Knowing More About Podia
Podia is a well-known name when it comes to letting users sell online memberships, courses, and digital downloads. It is pretty simple to use and does not need someone to be tech-savvy for getting started with the platform. The great part about Podia is that if you wish to migrate your course from another platform, you can do it here for free.
But if you think that Podia is not the right platform for you, let us explore various alternatives of Podia that might work for you and your business needs.
1. Xperiencify
The very first and highly recommended platform is none other than Xperiencify. Started back in the year 2020, the founders Marisa Murgatroyd and Murray Gray developed a digital company for the purpose of training named Live Your Message.
It was helpful for numerous students for selling hundreds of millions in the training courses as well as used gamification and also the 7 robust psychological triggers. With an idea of what can work and what cannot, Murray and Marisa created their very own digital training platform.
Xperiencify is not just meant for the current course creators but also for the aspiring ones who wish to breathe life into their online membership site or the coaching course to life. This feature-packed solution is pretty affordable when considered in comparison to all the other solutions currently available in the market.
With Xperiencify, the knowledge entrepreneurs can deliver exciting and very engaging learning experiences to the students as well as boost up the success ratio of the membership site.
This revolutionary and powerful solution is the outcome of the developers behind this software who worked on the latest trends prevalent in the market from the areas of addictive apps, video games, NLP, adult learning psychology and gamification. This approach is named "experiencification," which has the potential of bringing about ten to thirty times more engagement of the students as well as generates a plethora of repeated buyers.
It is a robust platform offering course creation and site-building. Xperiencify has numerous attributes like the amazing tools for the purpose of student recognition, and it has its own timer, various options with respect to content scheduling, real-time leaderboards, a built-in countdown timer, and a lot more.
That is not it, and this solution can also fetch you numerous customization options and allow the users to automate the process to register for the online course. It makes it super simple to follow up the tasks, owing to Zapier integration that is really very simple to set up. It eases the process for the users for connecting the email payment processor as well as the customer data to this platform. Zapier lets the users lay hands on over 1500 digital services.
Here you can fulfill various tasks like triggering the email sequence, using Zapier to send the surprise gift from the fulfilment company, importing the data regarding students, exporting to the Google Sheets, and sending all the new participants a welcome email.
The platform also offers amazing back-end tools for the course creator so that they can be in complete control of the content of their course.
Key-Features
→ With the XP Points, the students get to celebrate the little and big attainments within their course period.
→ The countdown time is helpful for the students to get encouraged for taking the actions as well as absorb the content of the course in the complete time frame of a program.
→ Xperiencify lets the users lay their hands on the Experience Engine. It proves to be helpful in connecting the creator of a course to the students in numerous ways, like SMS, emails, social media posts regarding the success on various platforms, and a lot more.
→The attribute that makes this platform stand out is the seven psychological triggers it merges with the course that can enhance the engagement level and also the retention rate as well as bring about a cut in the dropouts and the refund rates.
→ It is super easy to navigate through the website, and the course creator doesn't have to be tech-savvy for creating and delivering the astounding online course. This leads it towards making it an amazing choice for the experienced as well as the newbies in the eLearning arena.
→ With Xperiencify, the course creators can send automated SMS, emails, and voicemails to the students.
Pricing
The platform has three pricing plans viz. Launch, Growth, and Scale Plan.
The cost of the Launch Plan is $49 each month in the monthly billing plan and $42 each month (which sums up to $499) in the annual billing plan.
The cost of the Growth Plan is $149 each month in the monthly billing plan and $117 each month (which sums up to $1399) in the annual billing plan.
The cost of the Scale Plan is $499 each month in the monthly billing plan and $375 each month (which sums up to $4499) in the annual billing plan.
The platform has a free trial for 14 days to offer to its users.
2. Kajabi
Kajabi is the next alternative we have on our list. It is a pretty detailed platform for content marketing. From launching as well as managing online courses, it provides all that is required. By using Kajabi, you can design and run the landing pages, edit the digital products, launch email marketing campaigns, and do a lot more stuff.
For creating and selling courses in the market, Kajabi is a one-stop solution. Ranging from video hosting to marketing tools and digital course building, this platform supports all aspects.
You can also create landing pages and funnels here. Along with the course, you get the liberty of building a complete website and blog with your own branding on this platform. The remarkable attributes this platform offers, like the absence of transaction fees or the tool for sales pipeline, make it unique.
Features
→ Kajabi helps you in running the online business in order with ease by offering you one or another tool like email marketing, landing pages, sales pages, shopping cart, blog, online courses, marketing funnels, and website. It lets you develop professional-looking digital courses.
→ This platform is consistently working towards developing and improving its features and also adding in to enhance its functionality.
→ The live support it offers is awesome as it works the whole week (seven days) for 24 hours each day. Support agents provide top-tier and really quick responses to the users. They can troubleshoot the issues and also help edit the codes for providing solutions modified specially for you. Kajabi takes the feedback provided by users very seriously and also takes action according to them.
→ The one thing which is pretty incredible is that Kajabi lets you customize almost anything and everything.
→ Users can control several elements of the course directly from their smartphones by using its mobile application, which is easy to use.
Pricing
Three pricing options are provided by Kajabi to its users. You can choose from Basic, Growth, and Pro.
The cost of the basic plan is $149 USD per month with the monthly billing and $119USD per month with the annual billing.
The cost of the Growth plan is $199 USD per month with the monthly billing and $159 USD per month with the annual billing.
The cost of the Pro plan is $399 USD per month with the monthly billing and $319 ISD per month with the annual billing.
A free trial for the period of fourteen days is also provided to the users.
3.Thinkific
Thinkific is the next alternative we are going to discuss in this list. It is a powerful digital platform that is overloaded with attributes like community forums, personalized assignments, and advanced quizzes.
The entrepreneurs who want to create and then launch their stunning digital courses can use the one-stop solution from this Canada-based company. From teachers to coaches, this platform has helped various users in hosting and also selling the courses on the easy-to-use platform they offer.
Features
→ Ranging from landing page to receiving the products and eventually loving your course, Thinkific handles every moment of the journey of your customer.
→ Creating and editing the course is made very easy on this platform.
→ Top-tier customer support is offered by Thinkific to its users. It provides a quick response to the inquiries of the users. They take the initiative of reaching their customers for feedback and see where they can do better to help the users.
→ It reflects the aesthetics of the brand and is also helpful in designing the online school.
→ The instructors can post their queries on the fantastic Facebook page of this platform and, with the help of other users, get it solved. Various webinars are also hosted by Thinkific that covers all the aspects ranging from guidance regarding course creation to marketing the products.
→ A couple of alternatives for payment processing are offered to the users. No transaction fees are charged on any plan.
→ Various integrations help you be in touch with students.
→ Users can add almost anything in the course using Thinkific like presentations, quizzes, rich text, pdf docs, etc.
→ Thinkific provides you a brief understanding of where the students are getting stuck because it is very simple to track the growth of the students.
→ A really easy and quick payout is provided.
Pricing
4 pricing options are provided by this platform to choose from Free, Basic, Pro, and Premier Plans.
The Cost of the Basic plan is $49 USD per month, with the monthly billing and annual billing $39 USD per month.
The Cost of the Pro Plan is $99 USD per month, with the monthly billing and annual billing $79 USD per month.
The Cost of the Premiere Plan is $499 USD per month, with the monthly billing and annual billing of $399 USD per month.
A 30 days money-back guarantee is also provided for the users.
4. Udemy
If you want to launch an online course, then Udemy is the platform for you with all the required tools. This platform is for the purpose of creating courses. Regarding the creation of online courses, Udemy had plenty of tutorials to offer. For beginners, it is very easy to get started.
Handy resources like the Instructor dashboard and curriculum pages dashboard, which help you in staying on course while preparing digital products, are also here. Users can publish the completed course straight to Udemy's marketplace and have access to the entire set of tools which is needed to help promote the course.
With Udemy, the educators who have just started online can sell their course right under this banner which makes it a terrific choice. Udemy gets you the attention of a vast audience by listing the course on this active platform; it will surely fetch many more customers.
Features
→ Udemy has a quite effective community for the students who want to buy a course. This is why it is an excellent platform for beginners who are looking to bring their course to the audience who are in search of the course you are providing.
→ This platform provides ready-to-use templates of their courses, and it is very easy to use. Therefore the users just need to upload their content.
→ Udemy is SEO-friendly. On google search results, their courses rank pretty high. Hence your course also gets a quick and easy promotion.
→ It offers their software which is absolutely free, as well as its user's certificates.
→ Both offline and mobile access to the classes is offered to the students.
→ Amazing customer support is also provided by Udemy. Various articles and detailed guides are provided with infrequently asked questions. It has a global community of instructions that motivates the users to ask questions to other teachers. A user can also send a mail ticket to the customer support service in case all of the other options fail.
Pricing
Without spending any money, users and instructors can publish unlimited courses as Udemy is completely free.
Udemy makes its earnings by dividing the money gained into half for the organic sales. In cases where students buy the course by using instructor coupons, the user receives 97 per cent of the money, and Udemy gets the remaining 3 per cent.
A 30 days money-back guarantee is also offered by this platform.
5. Teachable
The next alternative that we will be covering in this post is Teachable. Here, the process of course creation is pretty simple with Teachable. It accepts the standard content range, which includes PDFs, mp3 audios, images and movies. You just need to upload them.
The platform boasts a wide array of features for designing the course. It lets the users organize their courses into "lectures" and "sections" (lessons and modules, respectively), as well as create the quizzes, but the types of questions are pretty limited, i.e., only the multiple-choice questions.
Teachable has the host of super-effective options for e-commerce. Here the users can sell the courses on the basis of membership, subscription or fixed-price. What is more, users also get various options of spurring the potential buyers right into the action, like the add-ons and discounts. The platform offers
on every site.
Features
→ Teachable offers customization that helps in incorporating the branding of the company.
→ Here users get a builder with the drag-and-drop function.
→ It has a pretty intuitive and user-friendly interface.
→ The platform also offers exclusive coupons and offers that boost enrollment. Affiliates get incentives and marketing schemes.
→ Teachable offers segmentation of email lists in order to send them to the targeted mailers.
→ It lets the users import the content from OneDrive, Google Drive or Dropbox.
→ The platform supports tablets, smartphones as well as desktops.
→ Here users can create their courses in a structured manner.
Pricing
The platform offers 4 pricing plans for the users viz. Free, Basic, Pro and Business Plans.
The Basic Plan costs $39 per month (with monthly billing) and $29 per month (with annual billing).
The Pro Plan costs $119 per month (with monthly billing) and $99 per month (with annual billing).
The Business Plan costs $299 per month (with monthly billing) and $249 per month (with annual billing).
6.Ruzuku
Ruzuku is the last alternative we are going to cover in this post. This extremely easy-to-use platform is well known for course creation. The course creation on this platform is simple and quick, and it is a user-friendly option for the entrepreneurs.
Features
→ Ruzuku provides a simple and flexible interface to its users. A pretty customized look can be created if the user has experience in designing.
→ Users can create quizzes, infographics, audio files and can also enhance the images by the various third-party integrations Ruzuku offers.
→ The option of drip-feeding the content of the course to the students is also there.
→ The students get the option of adding the bio of themselves and upload their photos by signing up for the course, which helps them make the most out of forums that are created for the objective of discussion.
→ What is pretty unique about this platform is that it allows the users to copy all their courses as well as split test various elements till they find their perfect combination. This eases the process for the course developers to test the different elements like the price points, coupon codes as well as the content formats.
→ The creators of the course can engage with the content by hosting their live webinar in the platform's dashboard and by also adding the community forum to the pages for content. It boasts a pretty attractive and inviting discussion board.
Pricing
Three pricing options are offered by this platform to its users to choose from Bootstrapper, Up and Comer, and University plans.
The cost of the Bootstrapper plan is $99 USD per month, with the monthly billing and annual billing of $74.75 USD per month.
The cost of the Up and Comer plan is $149 USD per month with monthly billing and annual billing of $83.08 USD per month.
The cost of the University plan is $199 USD per month with monthly billing and annual billing of $125 USD per month.
A trial for the period of fourteen days is also provided to the users.
7.Teachery
Teachery is the best option for entrepreneurs who want to set up and start their courses very quickly. It can be a very useful solution and can work best for course developers who don't wish to have multiple options and features to make a choice from.
Features
→ Teachery can be just the platform, and it will work the best for you. Especially for those who are looking forward to setting up their digital products truly quickly.
→ The customer service provided by this platform is really amazing. Resolving the queries of their users is the priority of Teachery founders by interacting and replying to them. It is mentioned in the customer's reviews how quickly they respond to the email tickets.
Pricing
Two pricing plans are offered by this platform to its users, a Monthly plan and a yearly plan.
The cost of the monthly plan is $49 per month, and the cost of the Yearly plan is $470 per month.
Here In both plans, users get a trial for the period of fourteen days.
Frequently Asked Questions
Wrapping It Up
Podia is undoubtedly one of the most powerful platforms and a torch-bearer in the arena of online learning that allows users to create beautiful and visually engaging courses with its numerous tools. Though it works wonders when it comes to helping the students get the most out of the lessons and with all other perks, it might still not be suitable for all the course creators.
In that case, Xperiencify can be considered as the best as well as a highly recommended alternative to Podia. Xperiencify is an incredible and feature-packed solution that has the potential of working right for both newbies and seasoned creators. It is both revolutionary and remarkable owing to the unmatched attributes it can incorporate in the courses like the 7 Psychological triggers.
Teachable and Thinkific can be a great option to go with if you need a platform that offers top-tier community features, astounding assignments and quiz options for testing the knowledge of the students.
Kajabi can be a great alternative if you are looking for an alternative that can help in mastering the sales funnel while selling the amazing courses at the same time.
Udemy is ideal for those who want to take the benefits right by tapping into the pre-existing audience.
Ruzuku and Teachery are just right for the creators who are looking for a platform that is not much complicated and the process of creating courses is quick and simple.
All the alternatives that are being mentioned above are pretty viable ones when it comes to Podia, and thus the choosing criteria come down to the functionalities you wish to have and access to as well as the budget for. The majority of the platforms mentioned above offer a free trial to their users, which can be used to figure out which platform is worth your investment.
